Holiday Books 2010

What was the best book you read this year? We open the phone lines to ask listeners about their recent and all-time favorites.

Below is a list of the books mentioned on the show:

Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades — Robert Spencer
Brida — Paulo Coelho
The Alchemist — Paulo Coelho
The Female Brain — Louann Brizendine
The Male Brain — Louann Brizendine
Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things — Professor Gail Steketee, Professor Randy Frost
Farenheit 451 — Ray Bradbury
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly: A Memoir of Life in Death — Jean-Dominique Bauby
Eat Pray Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia — Elizabeth Gilbert
Slow Fat Triathlete: Live Your Athletic Dreams in the Body You Have Now — Jayne Williams
The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment — Eckhart Tolle
A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose — Eckhart Tolle
Everyday Grace: Having Hope, Finding Forgiveness, and Making Miracles — Marianne Williamson
Enchanted Love: The Mystical Power of Intimate Relationships — Marianne Williamson
Keys to the Kingdom — Alison Armstrong
On Balance — Adam Phillips
The Instructions — Adam Levin
Tinkers — Paul Harding
Home — Marilynne Robinson
Housekeeping — Marilynne Robinson
Callings: Findings, and Following an Authentic Life — Gregg Michael Levoy
The Forty Rules of Love: A Novel of Rumi — Elif Shafak
Radio Ciudad Perdida/ Lost City Radio — Daniel Alarcon
Cloud Atlas — David Mitchell
Specimen Days — Michael Cunningham
The Hours — Michael Cunningham
The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature — Matt Ridley
Seven Pillars of Wisdom: A Triumph — T.E. Lawrence
Winter’s Tale — Mark Helprin
Parable of the Sower — Octavia Butler
True Grit — Charles Portis
Half Brother — Kenneth Oppel
Super Sad True Love Story — Gary Shteyngart
The Unbearable Lightness of Being — Milan Kundera
The Traveler — Daren Simkin
The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin — Mark Twain
Freedom — Jonathan Franzen
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet — David Mitchell
Life — Keith Richards
Zeitoun — Dave Eggers
Farm City — Novella Carpenter
Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines — Richard Muller
Shadow Tag — Louise Erdrich
Death of the Liberal Class — Chris Hedges
The Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History — S.C. Gwynne
Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy — David Hoffman
The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care — T.R. Reid
Cryptonomicon — Neal Stephenson
The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom — Graham Farmelo
Spirits’ Book — Allan Kardec
Running Out of Water: The Looming Crisis and Solutions to Conserve Our Most Precious Resource — Peter Rogers, Susan Leal, and Congressman Edward Markey
Isn’t It Great? — Sue Oksanen, Riley Zeisler, Tina DeRungs
The Adderall Diaries — Stephen Elliott
War In the Age of Intelligent Machines — Manuel DeLanda
Suite Francaise — Irene Nemirovsky
Dimanche and Other Stories — Irene Nemirovsky
Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meanings of Madness — Gail Hornstein
The Dancing Lion — Stephen D. Barry
Cheever: A Life — Blake Bailey
All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror — Stepehn Kinzer
Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA — Tim Weiner
The Puzzle Palace: Inside the National Security Agency, America’s Most Secret Intelligence Organization — James Bamford
Reality Hunger: A Manifesto — David Shields
Solar — Ian McEwan
Skippy Dies — Paul Murray
The Front Runner — Patricia Nell Warren
When God Was A Woman — Merlin Stone
Color: A Natural History of the Palette — Victoria Finlay
Jewels: A Secret History — Victoria Finlay
Art of Racing in the Rain — Garth Stein
Still Life with Woodpecker — Tom Robbins
Don Quixote — Miguel de Cervantes
A Christmas Memory — Truman Capote
Dropsy, Dialysis, Transplant: A Short History of Failing Kidneys — Steven Peitzman
Sea of Poppies — Amitov Ghosh
Someone Knows My Name — Lawrence Hill
Norwegian Wood — Haruki Murakami
The Wasted Vigil — Nadeem Aslam
Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand — Helen Simonson
The Dork of Cork — Chet Raymo
When God Is Gone, Everything Is Holy: The Making of a Religious Naturalist — Chet Raymo
Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer — Siddharatha Mukherjee
A Light In August — William Faulkner
Last Words — George Carlin
Cutting for Stone — Abraham Verghese
Brooklyn — Colm Toibin
Matterhorn: A Novel of the Vietnam War — Karl Marlantes
A Band of Brothers — Walter McDonald
The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them — Elif Batuman
War — Sebastian Junger
Why Your World Is About To Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization — Jeff Rubin
The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl — Timothy Egan
The Children’s Book — A.S. Byatt
Kay Francis: I Can’t Wait To Be Forgotten- Her Life on Film and Stage — Scott O’Brien
Virginia Bruce – Under My Skin — Scott O’Brien
Ann Harding – Cinema’s Gallant Lady — Scott O’Brien
Seven Types of Ambiguity — Elliot Perlman
Reaching the Animal Mind: Clicker Training and What It Teaches Us About All Animals — Karen Pryor
The White Tiger — Aravind Adiga
Kingbird Highway: The Biggest Year in the Life of an Extreme Birder — Ken Kaufman
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle — Haruki Murakami
The Stranger — Albert Camus
Black Swan Green — David Mitchell
The Spellman Files — Lisa Lutz
Through the Heart of the South — Jody Meacham
Madness at the Gates of the City: The Myth of American Innocence — Barry Spector
The King of California: J.G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire — Mark Arax, Rick Wartman
Animal Spirits: How Human Psychology Drives the Economy, and Why It Matters for Global Capitalism — George Akerlof, Robert Shiller
A Different Kind of Luxury: Japanese Lessons in Simple Living and Inner Abundance — Andy Couturier
Barcelona and Modernity: Picasso, Gaudi, Miro, Dali — William Robinson, Jordi Falgas, Carmen Bellon Lord
The Two Years Before the Mast — Richard Henry Dana, Jr.
Let’s Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship — Gail Caldwell
Travels in Siberia — Ian Frazier
The Life and Death of the Great American School System — Diane Ravitch
Saved By a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words — Kim Rosen
Possession — A.S. Byatt
When the Elephants Dance — Tess Uriza Holthe
Big Girls Don’t Cry: The Election that Changed Everything for American Women — Rebecca Traister
The Confessions of Nat Turner — William Styron
Slaughterhouse-Five — Kurt Vonnegut
Prescription for the Planet — Tom Blees
Ireland: A Novel — Frank Delaney
Madre: Perilous Journeys with a Spanish Noun — Liza Blakewell
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks — Rebecca Skloot
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) — Richard Feynman
Extra Lives: Why Video Games Matter — Tom Bissell
Maurice — E.M. Forester
The Testament — John Grisham
The Freak Observer — Blythe Woolston
Breaking Out of Bedlam — Leslie Larson
One With Nineveh: Politics, Consumption, and the Human Future — Paul and Anne Ehrlich
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration — Isabel Wilkerson
The Help — Kathryn Stockett
Just Kids — Patti Smith
Infidel — Ayaan Hirsi
Ordinary Wolves — Seth Kantner
Angle of Repose — Wallace Stegner
Shanghai Girls — Lisa See
The Elegance of the Hedgehog — Muriel Barbery
Assembling California — John McPhee
Why Meditate: Working With Thoughts and Emotion — Matthieu Ricard
Honeybee Democracy — Thomas Seeley
The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia — David Hoffman
A Suitable Boy — Vikram Seth
One Hundred Years of Solitude — Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California — Frances Dinkelspie
War Dances — Sherman Alexie
Dubliners — James Joyce
Descent Into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia — Ahmed Rashid
Little Bee — Chris Cleve
So Big — Edna Ferber
Let the Great World Spin — Colum McCann
A Visit From the Goon Squad — Jennifer Egan
Nemesis — Phillip Roth
The Lovers — Vendela Vida
Wuthering Heights — Emily Bronte
The Year of Rice and Salt — Kim Stanley Robinson
None of Us Were Like Before: American Soldiers and Torture — Joshua E. S. Philips
Beasts of the Field: A Narrative History of California Farmworkers, 1769-1913 — Richard Steven Street
The Angel’s Game — Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Living in the Heart: How to Enter into the Sacred Space Within the Heart — Drunvalo Melchizedek
Dark Star — Alan Furst
On Drugs — David Lenson
The Magna Carta Manifesto: Liberties and Commons For All — Peter Linebaugh
Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism — Sheldon Wolin
The Gay Place — Billy Lee Brammer
Hold Still — Nina LaCour
Cornered: The New Monopoly Capitalism and the Economics of Destruction — Barry C. Lynn
Unlikely Allies: How A Merchant, A Playwright, and A Spy Saved the American Revolution — Joel Richard Paul
The Quiet Book — Deborah Underwood
Bear in the Air — Susan Meyers
Babymouse #1: Queen of the World — Jennifer Holm, Matthew Holm
Turtle in Paradise — Jennifer Holm
The Ghostwriter Secret (Brixton Brothers) — Mac Barnett
Snook Alone — Marilyn Nelson
Mockingbird — Katherine Erskine
A Course in Miracles — Dr. Helen Schucman
Footprints Along the Shore on an Incoming Tide: Impressions of a Fellow Traveler — Janaka
Passages in Caregiving: Turning Chaos into Confidence — Gail Sheehy
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle — David Wroblewski
Anathem — Neal Stephenson
44 Scotland Street — Alexander McCall Smith
My Family and Other Animals — Gerald Durrell
Blunderland — Elizabeth O’Kane
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption — Laura Hillenbrand
An Equal Music — Vikram Seth
Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America — Paul Tough
The Coroner’s Lunch — Colin Cotterill
Amy and Isabelle — Elizabeth Strout
Olive Kitteridge — Elizabeth Strout
The Geography of Bliss: One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Places in the World — Eric Weiner
Quién decide el destino de los hombres?/ Who decides the fate of men? — Vassily Grossman
Sacred Hunger — Barry Unsworth
The Songs of the Kings — Barry Unsworth
The Rage of the Vulture — Barry Unsworth
Land of Marvels — Barry Unsworth
Heidegger’s Glasses — Thaisa Frank Unsettling
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest — Stieg Larsson
Passage to Nirvana — Lee Carlson
Slouching Towards Bethlehem: Essays — Joan Didion
The Lacuna — Barbara Kingsolver
I Thought So: More Original Epigrams — Mike Lipsey
Time On My Hands — Peter Delacorte
How the Mind Works — Steven Pinker
The Book of Mormon — Joseph Smith
Hydrogen, The Essential Element — John Rigden
Trek: An American Woman, Two Small Children, and Survival in World War II GermanyMary Hunt Kentsch, Steve Mumford —
Living Buddha, Living Christ — Thich Nhat Hanh
Pop Apocalypse — Lee Konstantinou
A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier — Ishmael Beah
California Crackup: How Reform Broke the Golden State and How We Can Fix It — Joe Mathews, Mark Paul
Bluest Eye — Toni Morrison
Beloved — Toni Morrison
Light Years — James Salter
What Is the What — Dave Eggers
Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln — Doris Kearns Goodwin
Secrets of the Olympic Ceremonies — Myles Garcia
The Historian — Elizabeth Kostova
The Golden Spruce — John Vaillant
Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War — Andrew Bachevich
The Junior Officer’s Reading Club — Patrick Hennessey
Where Men Win Glory: The Odyssey of Pat Tillman — Jon Krakauer
Random Family — Adrian Nicole LeBlanc
Handcrafted Modern — Leslie Williamson
Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions — Dan Ariely

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